wfn.org | Muslims love peace too, church group is told

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Note #7434 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

20-September-2002
02359

Muslims love peace too, church group is told

Kenyan says conflicts between faiths are "mainly just about the trinity"

by John Filiatreau

MADISON, IN - The Presbyterian-sponsored road show called the Interfaith
Listening Project came to this picturesque river town Thursday night to
deliver the message that one of the many things Christians and Muslims have
in common is a love for peace.

And for food: Before they spoke, the guests from Kenya enjoyed another in a
succession of bring-a-dish dinners, this one at Madison Presbyterian Church,
a few blocks from the Ohio River. They seemed a bit puzzled when a smiling
church member advised that a butterscotch pie on the buffet was "to die for."
And they complained mildly that they had put on weight during their whirlwind
U.S. tour.

After the meal, Alhaji Yusufu Murigu, the Muslim half of the team and the
secretary general of the Kenya Arab Friendship Society, patted the copy of
the Koran on the table before him and told a crowd of about two dozen: "This
book is totally about peace, all through. ... Many Americans look at the TV
and think Islam is violent, but it is not. It is all about being at peace
with your maker."

In fact, Murigu said, Christians and Muslims have the same
"great-grandfather" -"the prophet called Abraham" - and the differences
between the two faiths "are mainly just about the trinity."
The Rev. Jesse Kamau, the moderator of the Presbyterian Church of East Africa
and Murigu's Christian counterpart, said Kenyans of the two faiths are
unified as never before.

"For many years we have lived almost as two separate communities, having
nothing to do with one another, fearing and being suspicious of each other,
and falsely accusing one another," he said. 
"We had no thought of briding the gap between us until we got into a
situation where we had common socio-economic problems, political problems ...
and national catastrophes." (He mentioned one national disaster in particular
- AIDS, which he said kills 700 Kenyans a day, "a number that is al-ar-ming."
He told his listeners, "We cannot afford medicine, and so sometimes we just
watch them die.")

Christians and Muslims in Kenya joined hands about five years ago, he said,
in a campaign to change the country's constitution to limit the president's
power. "The majority of African presidents are terrorists and dictators," he
explained. "In our system the president is above the law." The government
manipulates the economy, he said, to keep people poor - "because then he can
rule them, because they have become beggars."

When Kenyans of all faiths came together to campaign for civil rights, he
said, the government decided "to bring conflict between us." Someone - he
implied that it was the government - burned down a mosque. The next day, two
Christian churches were set afire. Those incidents and ensuing violence
"turned the country upside-down," he said.

When the religious leaders went in a group "to see the place where the mosque
was burned," Kamau said, a group of street urchins "started throwing stones
at the Episcopal bishop, trying to kill him." And the Muslim church men and
women in the group responded by forming a circle around the bishop, shielding
him. "They themselves were hurt," he said, "but their action quelled the
community, and there was calm."

Kamau said God can use political and economic troubles "to bring his
scattered flock together," adding, "Sometimes problems are good if they make
us turn to God."

Kenyan Muslims and Christians are in regular dialogue now, he said: "Muslims
read their book and we read ours. And sometimes we go into a special room and
pray pray pray pray." He said he and Murigu, however, "are not trying to
amalgamate the two religions."

Church member Judith Glass, observing that the American media often cover
only the "extreme factions of the Islamic faith," asked Murigu what
percentage of Muslims can be described as extremists. He replied:

"I don't know. What percentage of Christians are radical? How many (Timothy)
McVeys are there?" (McVey was responsible for the 1995 bombing of the federal
building in Oklahoma City, in which 168 people were killed.)

Murigu said people who kill others are just "deranged people ... guys who
could do that, whatever faith they were in."

"Allah does not want anyone to take the life of anyone," he said. "Killing a
person is a very, very grave thing in Islam. ... If someone takes a life, he
is not a Muslim. Allah says if you will go to the trouble to get to know the
people, you will come to love them."

Murigu said the people he has met in the United States during his trip -
which had already taken him and Kamau to Illinois, Oregon, Idaho and Indiana,
and was yet to take them to Maryland, Michigan and New York - have a mistaken
understanding of "jihad."

"You believe jihad means to go and kill people," he said, "but that is wrong
information. Muslims also have got a lot of stories about Christians that are
not true."

The greater jihad, he said, is "a fight you fight with yourself," with
temptation to do evil. "The human being has no gear called neutral," he said.
"If he is not on the side of God, he goes straight to Satan."

He said Muslims are permitted to fight "only to preserve your life ... when
you have been promised harm because of your faith."

In response to another question, Murigu said women "are held in very high
esteem in Islam." He said one chapter of the Koran is devoted entirely to
women, "and this chapter has 176 verses." He said the role of the mother is
especially well regarded: "If you respect your mother and do what she says,
it is very hard to go to hell"; but if one is disrespectful or dismissive of
one's mother, "the throne of glory shakes with anger."

He said the bodies of Muslim women are covered up as an expression of
respect, "because god knows the effect women have on men."

Kamau pointed out that millions of people from all around the world want to
come to the United States to live - "Rivers of people all emptying out into
this great ocean called the USA" - and said the world's only superpower must
rise to the challenge.

"You will have to learn to live with these people," he said. "In a world that
is so divided, you must be able to unite enemies, so that these people will
be able to live together. ... How long can you run away from them? And how
far can you go?" But that work of peacemaking cannot be accomplished through
violence, he warned.

"The challenge is on you," he said. " But you cannot answer it with guns and
bombs. If you try to do it with military force ... when your sons and
daughters go to the west and go to the east, they will find enemies waiting
for them."

Murigu said much of the responsibility for making peace will fall to "the
people of the Book," by which he meant both the Bible and the Koran. "You
have the power to influence the government," he said.

When the speakers had exceeded their allotted time by about 20 minutes,
Madison Presbyterian's pastor, the Rev. Mark S. Porter, took the clock off
the wall and moved the minute hand back by about 45 minutes, saying, "We've
got plenty of time

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